The Scug yesterday.

[Locnar]

Initially I was going to hit Simcoe to try for some Lakers and/or Whitefish... the idea was, "If we catch one of either, at any size... it'll be a good day"... since we've never fished for them before. But plans changed, buddy had to work... so I called up my other buddy who had never been ice fishing before... he was down. So we went to the Scug to try for some Crappies. I have a pretty nice auger, works great... one problem, it doesn't work when there isn't a handle... It fell out of my sled last Monday... D'oh! So I borrowed one from a guy at work, and this thing was ancient. Rust covered, dull as hell. I attempted to hone it, but it didn't prove to be effective. We tried drilling for about 20 minutes, made it through about 3 inches of ice. Walked on over to the closest fishermen and asked to borrow an auger. Turned out, they didn't have one... only a spud... but they lent us that. What a workout, spudding through 18 inches of ice...

 

By the time we had our lines in the water, the crappies were no where to be seen... Caught some dink perch. Decided to try the auger again out deeper... gave up again... The guys with the spud had left, so we wandered over to the next closest group of people. Fortunately, they were nice people and lent us their auger. Drilled a few holes out "deeper". Catching dink perch again, and then the action suddenly died. A few minutes later, WHAM, big fish on the line... presumably a Walleye. Reeling, reeling reeling... pop! No more fish. It was close enough to the hole that when the hook popped out, my swivel popped up in the hole. Can't win 'em all I guess.

 

I'll get em next time.

[Locnar]

Damn! If it was a Muskie... I just missed out on what would have been my first.

[chris.brock]

yeah, likely a ski, lots are caught through the ice on the bog

[Rich]

Aren't you supposed to cut the line if you hook one anyway through the ice? Sounds like all went well!

[Lunkerhunter]

hey rich, unless that baby starts screaming line i wouldnt assume its a musky until you see it. lots of big walleye and bass cruising the bog. the only tell tale sign is that it just runs and runs.. but even then a mid size musky sometimes comes up fairly easy.